Massacres have been going on in Syria for 24 hours. As usual in the East, the victors began to assert their power with searches and arrests, which quickly turned into looting and massacres. In areas populated by Alawites (the religious minority to which Assad and his clan belong), sporadic guerrilla activity has begun in response to the violence.
In response to the shooting, massacres began. Even by the most conservative estimates of such an engaged anti-Assad organization as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (UK), more than a thousand civilians have been killed. The new authorities – yesterday still terrorists – are unable to control the violence they themselves have resorted to.
The strength of a state is measured not primarily by the scale of repression, but precisely by its ability to control its own violence. It is known that the government of the Ottoman Empire planned the relocation of Armenians, and officials gave orders for the killings verbally. But the shaft of murders so quickly gained strength and hordes of perpetrators that the original plan degenerated into genocide. Istanbul had no power to stop it, even if it wanted to.
The question of power will also come up for Kiev and Moscow if they manage to negotiate a ceasefire along the front lines (which I personally doubt). How capable are governments of keeping their junior commanders in check? Excesses of the enforcer are a legitimate companion to such conflict. The hatred on both sides of the trenches is such that no observers will be enough.
